Improvement in the manufacture of stiffeners for boots and shoes



w. N. SPRA'GU E. MANUFACTURE OF STIFFE N ERS FOR BOOTS AND'SHOES.

Patented Feb. 23,1876.

N- PETERS. PHOTO-LITHOGRAFHER. WASHINGTUN. D. C.

-' UNITED STAT S PATENT. ere;

WATSON N. SPRAGUE, or sOUTII FRAMINGl-IAM, ASSIGNOR To HIMSELF I AND' WILLIAM W. POTTER, 0F BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS.

IMPI iOVEMENT IN THE MANUFACTURE OF STIFFENERS FOR BOOIS AND SHOES.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent N 0. l74,l64, dated February 29, 1876; application filed- J anuary 12,1876.

reference to the manufacturing of shank pieces or stiifeners for the soles of boots or shoes and do hereby declare the same to be fully described in the following specification, and represented in the accompanying drawings, of which H Figure 1 denotes a top view, Fig. 2 a longitudinal section, and Fig.3 a transverse section, of a strip of leather-board, or other suitable material, as cut in the way heretofore practiced for conversion of it into shank-stifi'eners.

Fig. 4 is a top view, Fig. 5 a longitudinal section, and Fig. 6 a transverse section, of a sheet of like size of leather-board, or other suitable material, as cut in accordance with my improvement or new method of separa'tin g it intoshank stifteners.

By my-invention Lam enabled to obtain from a strip of material of any given size about thirty-three per cent. more of the stifl eners than by the old method shown in Fig. 1that is, with my mode of cutting the sheet, as represented in Fig. 4, I get eight 7 of the stifi'eners, whereas, by that exhibited in Fig. 1, six only can be obtained from a sheet. The two sheets represented in Figs. 1 and 4 are to be supposed to beequal in length, but although the Sheet Fig. 4 is wider than that of Fig. 1 by the width of a toe-scarfof a stitfener,v each sheet has the same are in transverse section, one section being a rectangle and the other a parallelogram of like base and altitude.

sheet so cut into strips for conversion into stifl'eners, they being shown at G G O, the

lines of out being represented at a a a as inclined to the opposite surfaces of the sheet. 4

In Fig. 4 the waste pieces between the stiffeners A A are represented at W W,

each piece 5W being less in size" than each 1.

piece W, on account of the stiffeners A being rights and the pieces A being lefts. In Fig. 4. the waste pieces shown at W W are very much smaller than those shown in Fig. 1, the stiffeners in the latter figure being shown at A 1)..

In carrying out my invention, I first cut the strip scar-fed at its opposite edges in manner as shown in Fig. 7, or at e e in Figs. 4 and 6;

and I next cut it into stiti'eners in manner so that each at its toe shall project beyond the heel of the next one the width or about the Width of the scarf, the heel end of each right and each left stifiener being made by a out directly square down through the sheet, as

shown at f. The transverse cuts of the strip,

described, of separating a strip of stock into shanlr-stifi'eners for boots or shoes, consisting in beveling the strip on its opposite sides and :at its edges, as represented, cutting through it transversely by curved lines 9 h, and lengthwise by lines f, so as to form in it a series of stiffeners, each of which is beveled on its opposite edges and at its toe, and projects at its toe beyond the heel of the next adjacent one, all being essentially as shown and specified.

WATSON N. SPRAGUE.

Witnessesz' R H. EDDY, J. R. SNOW. 

